


Put Your Faults to Bed (You Can Be King Again)

by SecretEnigma



Series: Lunoct Week [2]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Wings, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Character Death, Don't Worry It's Just Glauca, Don't copy to another site, F/M, Feels, Lunoct Week, Lunoct Week 2020, Might Continue This Someday, Noctis is Having a Bad Day, Nyx Ulric Is So Confused Right Now, Nyx Ulric Lives, POV Noctis Lucis Caelum, Time Travel Fix-It, To Be Fair So Is Everyone, Wing Grooming, Wingfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-22
Updated: 2020-09-22
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:20:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26602837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SecretEnigma/pseuds/SecretEnigma
Summary: For Lunoct Week 2020. Prompts used: Wings/AU Where They're Together During the Insomnia InvasionThe moment of the treaty signing between Lucis and Niflheim arrives and then shatters into war and betrayal. Tragedy looms as fate follows its destined course.Until Noctis, who should have been far away at Galdin Quay, safe and oblivious to all of this, crashes in through the high window and starts tearing Glauca apart. He has seen how this ends before, and he will not see it happen again.Even if it means swallowing his terror and accepting Bahamut's latest "Blessing" to ensure he gets there in time.
Relationships: Lunafreya Nox Fleuret/Noctis Lucis Caelum
Series: Lunoct Week [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1934224
Comments: 15
Kudos: 205
Collections: Lunoct Week 2020





	Put Your Faults to Bed (You Can Be King Again)

**Author's Note:**

> Continuing my efforts to actually do all of Lunoct Week! I have everything but the last day finished, and if I'm honest I'm probably not gonna make it in time for the day 27 one-shot (it KEEPS GROWING STAHP). But this one was very short and cooperative and I had a ton of fun with it. Honestly, after Lunoct Week, I might make this it's own AU series, because I have Ideas™ for how this one progresses later on that I didn't get the chance to cover here. >:D
> 
> Far more action focused than the last one, but hopefully there's enough Lunoct content for it to count for this week.

_“A curious old law I still permit as an outlier. A thief who escapes his captor, can no longer be held to account for his crimes.”_

_“A warning to the victim; never show weakness, lest you forgo the hand of justice.”_

_“Oh no, Good King, far from it. It is a warning to the hand of justice. Never to loose your_ **_grip_ ** _.”_

_The explosions shook the Citadel, and the thin veneer of courtesy and peace dissolved in a flare of crystalline magic and the click of guns cocking._

High above the city, the Wall bloomed into view, then shattered, raining down in physical shards like glass broken beyond repair. He could almost feel the blow in his own soul even though he was still too far to hear it over the scream of the wind and the pain in his shoulders and back as he pushed himself to **go** , go **faster**. He had to go faster, he had to get there in time, he **had to-**.

_“The Crystal will not serve you!”_

_“Nor you, once I take it from this accursed city.”_

_The MT units crashed through the windows from on high, slowly righted themselves in unnatural, jerky movements and opened fire. The shields bloomed too late to save them all, and the rest could only watch in impotent fury as the Emperor walked away._

There was a timer in his soul. He couldn’t see it, but he could feel it and it burned. Everything felt too sharp and too slow but also too fast and too blurry. He was dimly aware of the gunships he was passing, the screaming of a daemon in daylight up ahead of him as it died, of the way the city itself **wailed** as the Crystal was ripped from the guts of the Citadel and stolen away. The wind bit and tore at his passage, he was not familiar to the skies, no Lucis Caelum had done this since the time of the Mystic when this Blessing was taken away by an enraged Draconian and a broken Accursed. It didn’t matter, nothing mattered except the need to **go faster** , to stop what was coming and unfolding in his mind’s eye. He was almost there. He was almost **there**. Please, please just this once.

Just this once let him not be too late.

_“Come, we must escape while we can.”_

_“No, Clarus. … I fear escape is no longer an option.” The crash of metal landing on cold stone, the lazy turn of a predator who had cut off its prey. The prey tensed, “General Glauca.”_

_“It’s been a long time since I fought at your side, Old Friend.”_

_“Yes, but this time it is not your fight. If you wish to leave, go now.”_

_“And abandon my king? I think not. Besides, our magic is bound to you. If you fall, Lucis falls.”_

_“Then let us once more into the fray, Old Friend.”_

He was too slow, he was moving too slow, **go faster**. The city hurtled by, he could barely catch the air in his lungs before it had been ripped out by the winds tearing at his passage. The Citadel rushed up, large and present and smoking but still standing. The city was wounded by it wasn’t screaming yet with the death of its king. He was almost there. He was almost-.

The gaping hole in the window loomed, he tucked in on himself and **plummeted** , missed the center of the hole and felt glass scrape and bite across his back and limbs as it shattered anew but he didn’t care because Glauca was there, Clarus was there, **Regis** was there and they were all still breathing, still fighting. Glauca jerked away from Regis’s armiger of blades as he untucked and shifted and crashed into the _traitor-traitor-how-dare-you-I_ ** _trustedyouwithmyfather_** at the full speed of his plummet, magic bracing his bones to keep them from shattering as his sword ripped free of armiger and plunged into silver-red armor with a gleam of magic.

They tumbled end over end. Glauca howled. Crushing metal weight landed just wrong on one _new-sensitive-unwieldy_ limb and he **screamed** but didn’t let go of his sword. They slammed to a stop against the wall, Glauca beneath him struggling against the sword that had pushed through his shoulder and into the floor. _Panic-fury-desperation_ mixed and made him claw blindly with fingers that crackled with lightning at that metal faceplate, screaming fury at the traitor until the whole room shook with it —with the power of times untold, there was a price to pay for coming here and only one person who could have paid it, and here he was and he **would not let this happen again** —.

Glauca bucked desperately and he went flying, tumbling in the air, another wail of pain ripping free as he tried to right himself in the air and didn’t quite make it —something was wrong, something was wrong with him it _hurt-it-hurt-it-hurt_ —. He managed to land in a crouch, shaking and wheezing, his armiger swirling around him in a storm of crystal shards, heedless to everything but the traitor struggling against the sword pinning him to the floor by one bloody, armor-covered shoulder.

“Noctis?” The whisper jolted through his blood, and Noctis became aware of the other people in the room again. His father —still alive, still **alive** — stared at him with wide, uncomprehending eyes, Clarus —also still alive, he hadn’t been too late, thank the Six he hadn’t been too late— at his side with a gaping expression of disbelief.

Noctis stared back, tears welling up in his eyes from the sheer weight of relief, then shook himself and focused, “Get out of here.”

“Noctis, you-.”

A clatter from the end of the hallway, a glimpse of Glaive Ulric and **Luna** and his heart was hurting as he shouted at them all, “Get **out of here**! I’ve got Glauca!” A twitch of movement in the corner and Noctis bared his teeth and flared, “Don’t **move** , Ravus! You’ve done **enough** here!” He whirled back on his father and Clarus, pushing every ounce of command he’d ever had into his voice as he yelled, “ **Go**! I’ll catch up with you, then we’ll talk! Just **get out of here**!”

Miracle of miracles, they obeyed, skirting past him with confused, disbelieving expressions as they rushed for the hidden elevator. Luna tried to run to his side instead, but Glaive Ulric dragged her back and Noctis whispered thanks under his breath as he turned back to face Glauca, who was prying himself free of the floor with a pained, furious roar. Armiger rose around him, and Noctis bared his teeth, “I’ve waited **ten years** for this you pyre-cursed **traitor**.” Magic burned and the stones cracked from the pressure, “Let’s seehow you handle a Lucis Caelum that isn’t protecting a child or **dying**.”

He handled it well, apparently. Not well enough to survive it, but well enough that by the time the fight ended, night had fallen and the city was wailing with the cries of the refugees and the daemons and the Niflheim military looking to kill anything that moved. Well enough that every part of Noctis ached on a bone deep level, and tracking down anyone hurt him even more —it hurt to fl- to take the high road, but he had to be fast and the streets were a mess, he had no choice—. He eventually crashed down onto the roof of an office building and limped his way inside through the fire escape. He needed somewhere hidden to just … take a breather. Then he could find them. Then he could make sure they all survived the night and were **safe**.

Glaive Ulric found him first, his tentative, disbelieving call of, “Your Highness?” the only thing that kept Noctis from lashing out the moment he heard the crunch of shattered glass beneath someone’s boot. Noctis cracked his eyes open tiredly —when had he closed them?—, looked up at the Kingsglaive who had seen his father die but also had not —would not, if he had anything to say about it— and the Glaive said hesitantly, “I can take you to the rendezvous point, sir. Can you walk?”

“My legs,” Noctis rasped as he forced himself upright, “are just fine.” His-. His … **other** limbs, not so much. Both of them and his back were tacky-sticky from the cuts falling through the window at the wrong angle. He was also pretty sure he’d fractured one, maybe broken it, and the other ached and had a lot more blood on it —Glauca had gone after them, he’d known they were a weakness Noctis wasn’t used to, but Noctis wasn’t **thinking about that** **right now** —. Glaive Ulric gave him a quick, vaguely uneasy smile, then led him out of the office building and through the empty, occasionally burning streets. He gave a report without prompting as they moved and Noctis almost fell over from relief at the news that his father and Clarus were still alive. Tired, and not uninjured, but **alive** and planning to rendezvous with Noctis and Luna before escaping the city.

“We got separated not long after we left the Citadel.” Glaive Ulric explained as they climbed over some rubble, “The daemons were chasing after Princess like dogs on a bone and His Majesty and the Shield couldn’t keep up, so we split up until we could figure out why. Turned out there was a tracker in her hairpiece, we destroyed it and they stopped following us. We’re going to meet at the plaza on Eighth Avenue when we can, but Princess insisted we find you first. She’s not far.”

Noctis grit his teeth from the pain of one of his- of a limb rubbing against fallen rubble and jostling the fracture, “You left her alone?”

“Saw you land about a block over from us. Princess insisted I get you and I insisted she stay out of sight, so we had to split up for a little while. Besides, she’s hardly helpless. Uh, with respect, Your Highness.” Well, that was true enough. Luna wielded the trident for more than ceremonial purposes, but he wasn’t sure if she had it right now or if Niflheim had taken it from her when they brought her here. A glance at Glaive Ulric and he realized the man was only wielding one of his two kukri. He must have given the other one to Luna. Good.

Glaive Ulric led him into another office building, past the reception desk and into an enclosed room Noctis was too tired to contemplate the original purpose of. It didn’t matter to him anyway, not when Luna was **there** in the room, alive and whole and leaping to her feet with a kukri clutched in one hand until she saw who it was and dropped it from nerveless fingers in favor of running to him. Noctis grabbed her shoulders, let the warmth of her skin confirm that she was **alive**. Alive and relatively unharmed, alive and dirty and a bit frantic but **whole** and oh, oh he almost couldn’t stop himself from crying this time. Her hands cupped his cheeks, blue eyes studying his face in the dim, uneasy light, “Prince Noctis,” she whispered, his title an endearment to her rather than a formality, “Prince Noctis, you’re **here**. How are you-, how **did** you-?”

“ **Luna** ,” he whispered and his voice was a sob despite the tears that he refused to let fall. He leaned forward and pressed their foreheads together, trying to memorize the feel of her, the pulse pounding under the hand he raised to her neck, the whisper of her dress, the sound of her breath, anything to beat back the memories of when all those things had been gone and she had bid him goodbye amid the twisting ocean of sylleblossom blue.

He dimly registered Glaive Ulric awkwardly murmuring that he was going to keep watch just outside the door. That he would come and get them when it was time to head to the rendezvous. Then they were alone. Alone and Noctis could barely breathe, much less speak or think of what to say. Luna pulled back first and Noctis keened, clutching desperately at her wrist before she caught his hand and gently guided him to sit on the floor with her, “Prince Noctis,” she whispered, “How are you here? How did you…?”

He didn’t know where to start or how to explain, and when he opened his mouth it all tumbled out of him in a chaotic, disorganized mess, “You died. You died and I couldn’t save you, all I could do was **watch**. And then- and then everything fell apart, and the world was dark and Dad was dead too and I had to fix it but to fix it I had to-.” The words caught in his throat, the memory of the throne room rose up to strangle him and suddenly he was back there, sitting on that chair as the Lucii stabbed him one after the other after the other until his whole existence was magic and pain and duty and _Dad trust in me_ -.

“-tis, **Noctis**!” He came back to the present —not his present but also his present because he had **made it so** , there on that throne, using all that power for one last, selfish wish that the Astrals had granted in the way he least expected— and Luna rested her hand against his cheek to ground him. She looked deep into his eyes and he begged her silently to see, to understand. Her breath shook a little, and understanding bloomed, “You fulfilled the Prophecy, and then you came back.”

“I didn’t mean to,” he whispered feebly, “even though I wanted to.” Because it was true. He hadn’t meant to. He had already died once to purify the Scourge, and now he was back in a time where that had yet to happen and the daemons still prowled. But he also didn’t regret it, because Luna was here, she was alive, and as far as Glaive Ulric had last seen, so were Noctis’s father and Clarus. He couldn’t regret that. That chance. That hope to do it better this time around, even if it had meant rushing off without explaining a thing to his brothers, leaving them shouting in shock and alarm there on a remote stretch of beach by the Quay, because there had been no time to explain why he was running, why he had grown- why he now had-.

Luna’s gaze had wandered away from his face to look at them, and her hand slid away from his cheek, an expression of wonder on her face, “It was always said that the founding line of Lucis Caelum were blessed with the wings of the north wind. But then they were stripped of their wings as recompense for some long-forgotten sin.” Her fingers brushed against ratty, bloody black feathers and Noctis flinched at the sensation of touch on the foreign —unwanted but sorely needed— limb. His wing jerked away from her touch in response to his flinch and he hissed because that was the fractured one on top of all its glass cuts and moving it **hurt**. Luna’s hand pulled away.

She watched his face for a long moment, and maybe she saw the glass-brittle edge in his eyes, the hysteria he was holding back through sheer stubbornness, the denial he was using to stay calm in the face of having **extra limbs** where no other humans had them —save one man, one relative, that he **really** didn’t want to think about right now—, an ancient blessing restored that had let him arrive in time to save his father but that he still didn’t want because they were **unnatural**. Huge and covered in pitch black feathers, unruly and twitchy unless he was in the air, pulling on some long-lost instinct imprinted in the Draconian’s magic that let him fly all the way back to Insomnia in time to stop the death of Clarus and his father and Glaive Ulric who would hopefully never know just how much of an impression he’d made on the Ring of the Lucii, because he would never have to put on the thrice-cursed ring in this timeline.

Maybe she just saw his fear, held back by necessity but still gnawing on his soul, that he was now just like the monsters he was meant to purify. Because what human had **wings** that were at least ten feet from tip to tip, probably closer to twelve?

“Oh, Noctis,” she whispered sadly, and the sound of his name on her lips without his title made something in him shiver. Her fingers found his wing again and this time when he closed his eyes and shuddered, she kept her hand there, gently brushing her fingers over the edge of the tightly folded limb, “There is **nothing** about yourself that you must fear. You are still as human as the day I met you.”

He barked a laugh that sounded more like a sob, “You sure about that? Because my jury is still out on it.” Then again, maybe the line of Lucis Caelum had never been all that human. Maybe all Bahamut had done was taken away the most obvious sign of their inhumanity after the Betrayal to keep their hubris in line. At least until the Chosen King made a futile, longing wish into the void and those that remained of the Six had chosen to actually grant it, and the Draconian had apparently thought that now was a **great** time to reintroduce the long lost so-called Blessing-.

Luna shifted, stood up, and for one-heart stopping moment he thought she was going to leave. Instead, she moved to kneel behind him, pressed a hand between his shoulder blades —between his wings that he was still trying hard and failing to not think about— to keep him in place. There was a pause, then her hand fell away, “I cannot imagine what this is like for you,” she murmured, “but know that you do not walk this path alone.” Her fingers descended on his wings again, running gently down the length of his new feathers and his hitching breath turned into a boneless groan of relief as her magic breathed in the trail of her fingers, seeping into exhausted, strained new muscles, healing fractured bone, sewing shut throbbing cuts, and smoothing ruffled, stressed out feathers.

Against his will, his wings unfurled from their tight hunch, stretching out beneath her expert touch, not flinching as she stroked the inky pinions, smoothing them and neatening them, plucking free the few that had come dangerously loose in his frantic flight and fight that day. Each gesture was gentle, practiced, smooth, unafraid.

Loving.

“How…?”

“My family has always had a fondness for birds.” Luna admitted behind him, “Grooming is an important part of their care, though it takes a great deal of trust. I suppose we have always kept in practice, in case the Blessing ever returned to our allied line.” Her fingers paused, shifted to rest on the joints where wings met back, “Noctis. Thank you.”

He couldn’t see anymore. The blur was too thick, and when he blinked, it started to slide down his cheeks without a sound, “You don’t even know what happened. I couldn’t save you. I didn’t even have the guts to tell you- to **say** to you-.” His throat closed over. He could hear Shiva’s message in his bones, the last words of her beloved Oracle to the prince who should have manned up and said them first. Or said them at all. Before it was too late.

He should have listened to Sarah sooner.

Luna’s fingers drifted over his wings again, unafraid of them, of touching them. Like they were something perfectly natural to gently touch and care for, like they were nothing for Noctis to be so deeply, achingly afraid of. In the quiet of his tears dripping to the floor, her whisper —her faith, her love that he had never, ever deserved and never ever would even if he worked for it for two thousand years— was loud and clear as a song, “You came back for me. That is more than enough.”

_“You really ought to be more honest about the way you feel, Noct. If you don’t do it now, you might never get the chance.”_

Noctis twisted around, wings curling without his conscious intent to keep from striking Luna in the face as he shifted to face her. He reached out and pulled her into his arms, buried his face in her hair with a sob. His wings mantled, reaching to wrap around her like a black cocoon, shielding her from the darkness, from the world, from the fate he had already seen play out in a previous lifetime. He held her tight, like she would slip free and fade away into an ocean of sylleblossom blue if he didn’t, leaned down to breathe in her ear with a sincerity, a desperation, that scraped his insides raw, “I will always come back for you. **I** **love you** , Luna. I won’t ever stop loving you. I should have told you that before. I should have told you that a thousand times over. I love you. **I love you**. I don’t deserve to love you, but I **do**.”

Luna’s arms draped over his shoulders and around his neck, tight and grounding and fearless, “Love is not about deserving, Noctis. It never has been. Love is something you give without shame or fear. A Blessing to those you hold close to your heart that even the Astrals cannot take away.” She leaned back just a little, and in the gloom of his feather cocoon, glimmering with his armiger’s emotion-created crystals, she looked beautiful. She leaned forward again and when she pressed her lips against his, there was a permission there, a **relief** there that was not just his own. He accepted it desperately, greedily, and they stayed like that until their need for air drove them apart. They panted, foreheads touching, and Luna’s next words were a lifeline, “I love you, my Noctis.”

They stayed like that, basking in each other, in the other being alive and here, for what felt like a long time. Then there was a low, very awkward cough from outside their cocoon of feathers, a soft, “Your Highness, Princess, we should get moving if we want to make the rendezvous.”

Noctis reluctantly untangled from Luna, wings furling against his back as he stood, and this time the sensation only brought the a flicker of discomfort rather than the suppressed, borderline terror of before. He caught Luna’s hand before she could fully pull away, and after a searching glance at his face, she did not protest the touch, just tangled their fingers together as they stepped out of the room and followed Glaive Ulric into the broken Insomnia night. Noctis was … Noctis wasn’t okay. He probably wouldn’t be okay for a long time.

But Luna was there. Luna was there and alive and his dad and Clarus were out there somewhere too, alive when in another timeline they would have already fallen, and Noctis had **hope** for the first time since he had been pulled inside the Crystal and told he must sacrifice himself for the world.

Luna was there, and he had finally told her that he loved her. He had told her, and she had said it back.

He wasn’t okay, and wouldn’t be for a long time. But someday?

Someday he would be.

And he could do a **lot** on the promise of having a someday with Luna.


End file.
